The Defenders preview: Collin vs the Shadow Demon
by Lewascan2
Summary: Preview for planned story, The Defenders, in which several dimensions are smashed together, resulting in a partnership of protagonists from the dimensions of the Transhumans, Colors!3D, Wizard101, Doctor Who, and Minecraft. Together, they must overcome their differences to bring down the evil of the powerful Demon Coliation.


**AN: This is a preview for a story that will take place in the far flung future. It branches off of the Transhumans story. And to any who have read what I've written of the Transhumans so far, I've changed Connor's name to Collin. I will be going back and changing it in the story during rewrites. Now without further ado, I present a preview.**

_Recap: A combat-oriented tournament has been staged in a stadium-like arena by the group of heroes calling themselves The Defenders to lure out powerful demons from different dimensions so they can be defeated. Collin -currently a member of the aforementioned team- is participating in the tournament in case any do actually show up. But he may find himself in over his head._

Collin's green titanium armor shimmered in the hot noon day sun. He wasn't bothered though. Only cold weather really irked him, freezing up his joints and such. His opponent had yet to arrive, and his enhanced hearing was letting him know that the crowd was getting restless. "Damn it, where is he?" the cybernetic teen hissed, impatient as ever. He set up a line on his comm link to the earsets of his teammates. "C'mon, guys, the crowd is getting bored."

Zenion, a demigod of light garbed in golden armor with purple symbols etched into it, rolled his eyes in response. "Hold your horses. Medusa I swear, this guy never changes."

"What's taking so long?" Collin asked.

"If we knew, we'd have told you, if anything to make you shut up," growled a small orange anthropomorphic cat, named Fairy Tail. She was actually a the logical alter ego of her half-mad human form, Lofty. "Someone please tell me they have something to tell him. He's giving me a migraine."

Hedrover, a tall black-haired teen wearing a giant red trench coat and a pair of large, thick purple shades, frowned. "You getting anything, Ian." He turned to a brunette individual, dressed in standard ninja gear and a red headband with a large pearl set in the top.

Ian was sitting in a meditative position with his eyes closed. His eyes suddenly shot open. He uttered only a few words. "He's here... and he's from mine."

Hedrover called Collin back. "Ian's got a wave on some demon aura. Watch yourself, he says it's his dimension's demon."

Collin nodded in affirmation. "Right, ninja demon incoming."

Shadows began to creep into the arena, choking out all semblance of light. They rolled about like great waves of fog, settling everywhere but on or around Collin as if put off by something about him. The shadows eventually began to draw away and gathered together several yards in front of Collin. They relinquished the light back to the arena and became a more solid construct that was clearly humanoid.

Up with the team, Connor Thunderbreaker the necromancer watched the shadows with growing concern. "Scared? I thought you said you were born in the shadows?" inquired Steve, the musclebound miner of Minecraftia, noticing Connor's pensive expression.

Connor scowled at him. Steve raised his hands in a 'no offense' gesture. "Yes, I was born in the shadows, and as a Promethean Necromancer I am very intoned to the darker side of magic _and_ the shadows that come with it. And _that_ is one serious shadow. The aura he gives off is nearly darker than the witch Morganthe, a foe I once faced with my most trusted allies. We all nearly died to stop her. Collin may be battling for his life. Hopefully, he can find it in himself to be serious."

Connor turned his attention back to the arena, and Steve spawned a wooden stair block to use as a chair.

Down in the arena, the shadows had finally finished converging. Standing there, a man with glowing red eyes wearing all black with black hair and dark skin grinned widely. "I'm here," he rasped.

"Took you long enough," Collin muttered. "Shall we get started?" Collin ejected one of his energy swords into his left hand and morphed his right hand into his shotgun.

"You are a strange one," the shadowy figure stated.

"Well, you're not exactly a ray of sunshine yourself, demon," Collin replied smoothly.

The demon's eyes widened as did his smirk. "So, you know what I am? I expect then that you came here solely to fight me."

"Not just you, any member of your kind," Collin replied. The demon's eyes narrowed. "And don't expect to come out of this alive."

The demon smirked. "Ah, I see now. This whole tournament was orchestrated to draw out the Great Evils of all the dimensions that were crushed together here. You must be one of those pesky Defenders that have been giving our cause so much trouble." He smiled wider at Collin's confident smirk. "What a coincidence. I came here to hunt your kind. When I'm finished with you, I will kill the rest of your pathetic little team."

"You said it, not me," Collin replied without wavering, "but you'll still have to get past me first."

The Demon of Shadows smirked. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

The announcer interrupted here. "It seems that Collin's opponent has finally arrived, and in quite the flashy fashion! We have seen in all of Collin's previous fights that he could blow through his opponents without even seeming to try! His current opponent has not yet been seen in the tournament till up to this point, and his first fight will be with one of the leading contestants! This looks to be a good matchup. You can tell by Collin's expression! He will be taking this battle seriously!" The camera had zoomed in on Collin's blank expression and displayed it on the large screens around the arena. Eyes narrowed and mouth drawn tight, Collin was already standing in a defensive stance with his legs in a crouched backstance, his shotgun drawn tight under his right arm, and his sword wound over his shoulder. "Perhaps these two know each other as friends, or maybe they have a deep rivalry! Whatever the reason, this is sure to be one of the best fights so far! Fighters at the ready!"

Collin tightened his stance, while the demon remained unchanged in his own stance. The demon smirked while keeping his eyes closed. "Overconfident much," Collin muttered.

"DONG!" rang the starting bell. Collin dashed forward, hoping to get lucky and skewer his enemy. The demon's eyes opened wide. His body suddenly exploded and began to form a giant dome of shadow that threatened to swallow Collin up. Collin fired off a few shotgun rounds into the dome to no effect. He switched his shotgun out for his Bang Gun and fired a hasty bang sphere into the dome. It detonated and blew a hole in the dome. Collin leaped for the hole, using his boosters to accelerate and quickly propel him through the opening before it could close. Outside the dome, Collin somersaulted through the air and landed unharmed. The dome collapsed in on itself and reformed back into the demon. He looked annoyed.

"What? Did you seriously think you could beat me that easily?" Collin asked.

"Actually, yes, yes I did," the demon answered. Collin was rather insulted and showed his indignation with a huff. In the stands, Zenion, Connor, Hedrover, Fairy Tail, Ian, and Steve all simultaneously sweat-dropped, hearing the conversation over Collin's comm link. "Looks like I'll also have to take you seriously. That blast of yours... I actually felt that," the demon snarled.

The demon slammed his foot into the ground, and shadows began to engulf the arena. He lunged forward with tentacles of shadow shooting out of his body. Collin did his best to dodge, slashing and firing, but there were too many. A tentacle passed through his right arm. Collin's eyes widened _'It went right through my armor!'_ Then he went rigid and gave a gasp of pain. The tentacle pulled away, eliciting Collin to yell out in obvious pain. The tip of the tentacle seemed to have a green aura on it. The demon retracted all his tentacles but the successful one. Collin collapsed to a knee, clutching his right shoulder. "What the frag was that?" he ground out.

The demon laughed. "You are really quite oblivious, aren't you? Do you see this?" The remaining tentacle moved forward so that Collin could clearly see the green aura connected to the artificial limb. Collin understandably flinched away from the tentacle. "What do you think this is?"

Collin scowled. "You tell me." The injury was quite painful, and it wasn't acting like a small cut or bruise, in which case the pain eventually died away. Collin was still feeling the agonizing first pain of the strike.

"Why, It's a little piece your soul," the demon replied psychotically. Collin's eyes widened in alarm. "That's why you are in such agony at this moment. I just ripped away a portion of your very being, and that won't be healing itself up. I don't need to hurt you physically to kill you. Before long, you'll be nothing but a lifeless husk of metal, and I will have had myself a hearty meal." The tentacle wound back to his master.

Just as the demon was about the absorb the life energy, Collin activated Overclock. The teen was upon the demon in a split second. Collin slashed his sword through the demon's tentacle and left arm. The demon howled in pain. The tentacle dissipated into shadow, releasing the piece of Collin's soul. Collin drove his sharp knee plate into the demon's face in the same second, launching him backwards several yards in a daze. Collin deactivated Overclock and approached the hovering wisp of his life energy. Collin was saved the trouble of finding a way to reattach it, as the piece eagerly flew into Collin chest. The cybernetic teen sighed in relief as the pain in his arm dulled. He turned his now angry gaze to the recovered demon.

_'How can he move like that?'_ the demon wondered. _'If he had been going that fast before, I never would have hit him.'_ The demon glared at Collin, who returned the glare with equal vehemence.

"You ramped up your attacks," Collin shrugged in response to the demon's face of confusion and anger. "So I ramped up mine. You won't catch me off guard again. And now I know how to hurt you." The demon scowled. "Light and energy," Collin stated plainly. "You can absorb and steal soul energy. But guess what, my weapons are powered by my own life blood. Essentially, my life energy weaponized. And if I can touch you with it, that means that I can hurt you with it. You also become physically tangible when injured, which is how I deduce that I was able to grace your pretty boy face with the gentle caress of my knee."

The demon practically snarled at Collin. Only five minutes into the match, and his opponent had figured out his weakness. In fact, the teen seemed to be built to perfectly combat or at least equal the demon. Then he smiled. "You can't beat a shadow."

Collin smirked even though he slightly doubted himself in that regard. "Wanna' bet?"

The demon laughed. "That's a sucker bet! Even if you blow me apart, I'll always reform. And you can't keep fighting forever!"

"But you can't either, can you?" Collin replied. The demon halted. "When you run out of energy, you will no longer be able to reform. Then I'll have won." Collin took an aggressive fighting stance.

"We shall see. I am the Demon of Shadows, the one and only Shadow, and I shall bring about your demise," the demon growled.

"Yeah? Well, I'm Collin, cybernetic dimension jumper extraordinaire, and I'm going to kick your sorry aft to Tartarus and back," Collin replied.

The two charged with the demon having expelled hoards of tentacles and Collin holding both of his energy swords. Before they could meet, however, Collin disappeared and reappeared behind the Demon of Shadows. In the following minute, Shadow knew only pain. Collin was everywhere at once, dismembering the demon, punching and kicking him at every opportunity, and rapid fire stabbing him over and over again. The demon couldn't hope to defend against the onslaught. Collin drove Shadow into the wall of the arena while keeping up his assault. Collin finally leaped backwards and charged up a bang blast, deactivating Overclock. The demon was too dazed and busy reforming to focus on the teen. Collin finished charging and fired the sphere of raw energy. It detonated, blowing a large chunk out of the wall and obliterating Shadow.

Collin stood back to admire his handiwork, even as the demon began reforming in the same spot. Collin groaned. "You should have stayed down." He transformed his left arm also into a Bang Gun and slammed the front of the two guns together.

In the stands, Zenion raised a brow. "Not that I'm surprised that Collin would resort to such, but that is a very destructive attack that he is planning. If he overdose it, he could possibly bring down the stands on that side of the arena."

"What is he planning?" Hedrover asked.

"If I had to compare, it's nearly as powerful as your gaze, Hedrover, except on a more controlled and focused level," Zenion replied. He smirked at Hedrover and Fairy Tail's surprised expressions. "He calls it his Bang Laser and tells me that he's the only one of his kind who can pull it off."

A conjoined sphere of energy began to form within the clamps of Collin's Bang Guns. It slowly grew in size, fueled by both outlets. Collin briefly glanced at the demon to make sure he was still reforming. He was, so Collin returned his full concentration to growing the sphere as big as possible as quickly as possible. Five agonizing minutes passed. Collin's barrage and finishing move had definitely done their job. The demon was still reforming, but he was complete enough to comprehend the sight of Collin charging a large ball of energy, not unlike the kind that had blown him up. He mentally worked to reform quicker. He did NOT want to be on the receiving end of Collin's fully charged attack.

In the stands, the Defenders (minus Collin, of course) watched with anticipation. Collin's sphere was now as big as his torso and head, and he was holding it mostly behind himself to prevent it from being detonated by a cheap shot from the demon. "Sure is taking his sweet time," commented Fairy.

"Not willingly though," replied Zenion. "The Bang Laser attack requires a very good chunk of time - well, large for being in the middle of battle - to charge, unless he uses Overclock to hasten the process. But that expends too much energy." Fairy Tail nodded in understanding. "If fighting alone, his only hope of charging the laser is to knock his opponent for a serious loop."

The sphere was now as large as Collin's head, torso, and forelegs. "J-just a tiny bit more," groaned Collin under the strain. Shadow was almost finished reforming. Collin would have to attack soon, ready or not.

"Rrrraaahhhhhh! I'LL RIP YOU APART!" He was up! It was now or never! Collin swung the sphere around to his front at a slightly upward angle - careful not to let it touch the ground and detonate.

The demon charged, expelling masses of tentacles, and Collin fired.

"Shoop da' whoop," Collin smirked. The sphere nearly doubled in size as a massive laser burst forth. The laser incinerated any part of the ground it touched and let off Bang blast explosions at every point of contact. (Basically, a really big line of mass destruction was created.) Shadow screeched in agony as he was disintegrated by the attack. The laser continued on to blast straight through the arena wall and exit the other side. Booming explosions rang out, and large cracks began to form up the wall, threatening to collapse that side of the structure, bleachers, crowd, and all. The people began to panic, and Collin finally let up on his attack. The released laser shot through the hole in the wall and curveballed into the sky, never to be seen again.

Collin calmly observed the gaping hole in the arena as panicked civilians rushed to find safer seating. The other Defenders - minus Zenion, who stood with his face cupped in his hands - were standing open-mouthed at the show of overdone destruction. "He overdid it again," Zenion groaned.

"I'm pretty sure I got him," Collin cheerfully quipped over the comm.

"There are just no words to accurately describe how ridiculously reckless that was," Fairy Tail deadpanned.

"Hey! It worked, didn't it?" Collin protested.

The Defenders in the stands turned to Ian, who was still in a meditative pose. "Watch yourself, the aura has yet to dissipate. If anything it... W-what?!"

"What? What is it?" Collin asked anxiously.

"It's... It's- You need to get out of there now!" Ian exclaimed.

A dark fog began to fall over the arena, and a heavy, deathly aura could be felt. Collin involuntarily shivered. "I just got a chill," he muttered. The fog blackened, becoming blacker than night. The evil aura pressed down harder on the arena. Collin stood his ground and turned about, trying to discern from where the first attack would come.

Two spots in the blackness suddenly lit up red like a pair of giant angry eyes. "TIME TO DIE!" echoed the maniacal voice of Shadow. All at once, tendrils were everywhere! Collin leaped, dodged, and slashed away, but wasn't fast enough without Overclock active. A tendril pierced his chest. Collin let out a cry a pain. The tendril somehow became tangible and then began to swing Collin about, bashing him into the walls and ground while other tendrils lashed and stabbed him. Even in the haze of pain, Collin had to give the guy props. He hadn't had a harder time with an opponent since teaming up to fight Zenion's power-mad father. This guy had taken everything Collin could throw at him... except one thing. "YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD KILL ME JUST LIKE THAT? HAH!" Shadow laughed. "YOU DIDN'T GET ALL OF ME WITH THAT BLAST! AS LONG AS ANY PART OF ME SURVIVES, I CAN STILL REGENERATE! BWAH HAH HAH HAH!" Collin frowned. It was hard to ignore the pain, but he managed to muscle his way through it. His last option. Yes, he would have to do it. It was more than risky, but he was sure the others could find a way to protect the crowd. There was no other choice.

"C-core half r-release," Collin commanded. His chest opened up to revealed an odd blue core that seemed to be out of place with his other mechanics. The orb whirled and released a large pulse of blue energy that disintegrated the tendrils on Collin and part of the fog. The Demon of Shadows screeched in pain. Collin took a brief moment to gather his bearings and get his second wind, closing his chest meanwhile. All around Collin, there was a giant crater, created by the overwhelming power of the blast. Collin activated Overclock and flew into the air like a bullet with his boot thrusters. (He was only able to fly when using Overclock.) He easily dodged the tendrils that attempted to hinder him, and made his way out of the demon's reach. Collin got up around two-hundred feet into the air and maintained a hovering position.

Shadow howled and screeched viciously. "GET BACK DOWN HERE AND FIGHT, WORM, AND FACE YOUR DEATH!"

Collin only smirked. "No thanks, I'm good. Besides, this vantage point will provide me with an excellent view of your destruction." Collin frowned. He would just have to trust his teammates. "Zenion..." Collin spoke through the comm link. He raised both his hands above his head and transformed them both into Bang Guns. "... I'm going to have to use _that_ attack... the Nova Bomb."

"WHAT?!" Zenion exploded. Collin winced, and the other Defenders stepped away from Zenion. None of them had ever seen the demigod lose his cool. "Are you mad?! If you use the Nova Bomb, you'll take us all out with the demon! What about the civilians?! They won't survive the blast!"

"What? Is this true, Collin? Just what kind of attack is this Nova Bomb?" Hedrover asked.

Collin took a moment to respond. "I-I... The Nova Bomb is an attack I invented using the same principles as the Bang Laser, except the energy is given more room, expanded, and let to roam wild. This results in an attack that I can charge to any degree for an explosion that depends on the charge time. Technically it's not as powerful as a concentrated Bang Laser, but it does far more damage and is practically impossible to dodge. T-the one and only time I ever used it..." Collin broke off, and his frame shuddered. "...it destroyed an entire city. Nothing survived; everything was leveled to the ground. At the time, I had somehow managed to convince myself that the ends justified the means. It didn't. There's no way that kind of thing could ever be justified. I still haven't forgiven myself."

The others listened in shock. Only Zenion had already heard the story. He was still ranting, but most everyone was managing to ignore it.

"I'm counting on you guys to get everyone out of the arena. The only way I can beat this guy is if I don't miss any part of him. He needs to be completely obliterated. The bomb will take a while to charge, so you guys have plenty of time, at least ten minutes. I will limit the blast to the arena. Now go, and nothing you can say will stop me!" Collin began to charge a Bang sphere above his head.

"Gah! Come on, let's hurry!" Zenion exclaimed. "We must warn the bystanders.

"He really is crazy, isn't he?" Fairy Tail muttered.

"Far be it from me to judge, but you might not be too far off," Steve agreed.

The Defenders rushed to get the public to safety, as Collin continued to charge his most devastating attack.

**AN: And that's all for now. Wouldn't want to spoil an entire section of the story now would we? I think this could be something great given time and a lot of storyboarding. This story will be started up whenever it is that I get around to it. For now, Read and Review. Let me know if you want to see this story developed in full!**


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